Developing Theinitial Flight Attendant Students Speaking Skills Using Problem-Based Learning Technique

siswana, m.pd; dr.santi chairani djonhar, m.a, h.ujang suparman, ma.,ph.d;

The objectives of this study were (1) To identify the most common communication problems found by the flight attendants in the real-life working situation, (2) To investigate how problem-based learning technique can be used to develop the students‘ speaking skills, and (3) To analyze what the development of the students‘ speaking skills is. The subjects were 24 initial flight attendant students who attended the initial English class in Garuda Indonesia Training Center on February, 2015. The instruments employed in this study were interviews, observations and support by the documentation.
Based on the data collected, it can be concluded that there were many speaking problems that found by the flight attendants when performing their duty that can be divided in before taking off, during flight, and after landing problems, such as double sitting problem, seat changing problem. It was also found that the implementation of problem-based learning technique can be used to develop students‘ speaking skills by giving the students opportunity to do many practices, to learn in a small group consist of four, to learn in enjoyable class environment, to have spontaneous reaction in facing the problems, to expose by real-life problems, and other factors. Moreover this study showed that students‘ speaking skills based on conceptual, lexical, syntactical, phonological point of views is developed quite highly, especially the syntactical point of view.
The research concluded that Problem- Based Technique is beneficial to be applied at the English class for initial flight attendant students in Garuda Indonesia Training Center (GITC) to develop their speaking and problem solving skills, thus to prepare their readiness in facing some problems in the real-life working situation.